In pubs, warding doesn't have to be that complicated. Pretty much put wards on the rocks with the marks on them, and you're good. The chance of the other team warding or even counter-warding you is really really low.
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Dota 2 Beta Thread 2: Real Talk Discouraged [Magnus, Teams, 6.75b, 150+ Shop Items]
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In pubs, warding doesn't have to be that complicated. Pretty much put wards on the rocks with the marks on them, and you're good. The chance of the other team warding or even counter-warding you is really really low.
CornBurrito
Member
Speaking of which, does DOTA2 have animation cancelling? IIRC in DOTA1 that could help speed up your basic attacks quite a bit.
Is it worth leaving your lane (and possibly the carry you are babysitting) to go ward the jungles? At the start of the game you generally only have 2 wards which are usually placed at the rune spots right? How do you determine when it is safe to abandon your lane to help ward the other side of the map?
Obviously it all depends on who you're with and who you are against. You wouldn't leave a drow alone with two stuns on the lane. But generally look at your lanemate, if he can survive and benefit from the solo xp for the next 3/4 minutes go and ward or gank. Carry a tp in case he gets jumped under tower, but otherwise just make your own way up and down the map.
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
Enchantress' ult hurts like hell early game (it is still lethal at any time in the game, but I find it more threatening during the laning phase). It alway annoys me when I'm playing melee against one.
Run at her, not away, early game her heal won't be maxed, rely on burst damage to kill her.
Playing as a support can be a pain in the ass and I've never received quite as much bullshit from my team when playing in any other role.
Here's a little story about stupid teammates and why support is a bad role to suggest for new players who want to play without getting yelled at (yes, bad carries can hurt a team more):
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Let's see, I had an Axe, Bane, Silencer, and Skeleton King on my team and I was Dazzle. First thing I did as soon as I entered the game was buy wards and courier like any good support should. Well, as I was placing the wards, the Axe and Silencer pair up as does the Bane and SK, leaving me in the middle to fight against Drow. Alright, no big deal, figured they could probably get some early kills and I knew I could handle the solo lane. Well, this being a pub game, my team obviously dies a couple times during the laning phase while I am still keeping Drow at bay with some Poison harass forcing her to waste money on heals. I also rack up a nice number of denies with 15 in just the first part of the game.
I watch Drow head towards top (which can be clearly seen on the map with the wards I still had up) and call SS Top. Well, as she is about halfway there, my wards go out and Silencer decides he'll just go ahead and keep at whatever it is that he is doing. He gets ganked and immediately says in the chat, "No call and no wards? Useless fucking support. Not only that, you fed Drow to hell and back."
This confused the hell out of me because not only had I not died a single time, I had also kept her money going towards regen and got crazy denies. I wonder what stat he was looking at. I'll admit, the wards did just go out, but I did have the call and a glance at the map before the wards disappeared would have revealed all. Not only that, as soon as the wards went out, I bought another set and had them on their way to me in the courier (which I had already upgraded). Of course, that elicited a 'chicken stealer' message from the SK even though it was not being used when I called it.
So the game continues on for a while without incident until I decide to go down to help the Bane and SK who were getting their asses kicked. SK has to use his revive and still ends up on the verge of death, so I use my Shallow Grave on him so that he can escape. After doing that, I go and help out Bane who is now getting 2v1'd. He uses his brain sap and still loses a shitton of health after that, My grave still hasn't cooled down, so I throw a poison at one of the attackers and then stand next to Bane and pull out a heal, which does enough damage to the attackers to get a double kill (they were already at low health). Bane, who would have died had I not used the heal, proceeds to call me a killstealing bitch. Whatever.
The game continues on and I ensure two double tower pushes down top and bottom using my support spells. Well, after that, we decide that we are never going to push again and end up losing.
Who's fault do you think that was? Yep, Dazzle's fault. 'such a noob support' 'didn't do shit the whole game' 'no heals, graves, or armor reduction all game long'
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The moral of the story? Only play support if you feel like getting yelled at even when you are playing extremely well.
Here's a little story about stupid teammates and why support is a bad role to suggest for new players who want to play without getting yelled at (yes, bad carries can hurt a team more):
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Let's see, I had an Axe, Bane, Silencer, and Skeleton King on my team and I was Dazzle. First thing I did as soon as I entered the game was buy wards and courier like any good support should. Well, as I was placing the wards, the Axe and Silencer pair up as does the Bane and SK, leaving me in the middle to fight against Drow. Alright, no big deal, figured they could probably get some early kills and I knew I could handle the solo lane. Well, this being a pub game, my team obviously dies a couple times during the laning phase while I am still keeping Drow at bay with some Poison harass forcing her to waste money on heals. I also rack up a nice number of denies with 15 in just the first part of the game.
I watch Drow head towards top (which can be clearly seen on the map with the wards I still had up) and call SS Top. Well, as she is about halfway there, my wards go out and Silencer decides he'll just go ahead and keep at whatever it is that he is doing. He gets ganked and immediately says in the chat, "No call and no wards? Useless fucking support. Not only that, you fed Drow to hell and back."
This confused the hell out of me because not only had I not died a single time, I had also kept her money going towards regen and got crazy denies. I wonder what stat he was looking at. I'll admit, the wards did just go out, but I did have the call and a glance at the map before the wards disappeared would have revealed all. Not only that, as soon as the wards went out, I bought another set and had them on their way to me in the courier (which I had already upgraded). Of course, that elicited a 'chicken stealer' message from the SK even though it was not being used when I called it.
So the game continues on for a while without incident until I decide to go down to help the Bane and SK who were getting their asses kicked. SK has to use his revive and still ends up on the verge of death, so I use my Shallow Grave on him so that he can escape. After doing that, I go and help out Bane who is now getting 2v1'd. He uses his brain sap and still loses a shitton of health after that, My grave still hasn't cooled down, so I throw a poison at one of the attackers and then stand next to Bane and pull out a heal, which does enough damage to the attackers to get a double kill (they were already at low health). Bane, who would have died had I not used the heal, proceeds to call me a killstealing bitch. Whatever.
The game continues on and I ensure two double tower pushes down top and bottom using my support spells. Well, after that, we decide that we are never going to push again and end up losing.
Who's fault do you think that was? Yep, Dazzle's fault. 'such a noob support' 'didn't do shit the whole game' 'no heals, graves, or armor reduction all game long'
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The moral of the story? Only play support if you feel like getting yelled at even when you are playing extremely well.
Hopefully Tobi is featured in something I can disable.
I hate this. I've always hated this. I hated it in LoL and I hate it in Dota. Calling missing is a courtesy, not a requirement. People need to learn to watch the mini-map themselves and be able to read the situation on their own without having some player mother them the whole time.
Of course, calling missing whenever you can should be encourage, but I feel no one ever has a right to complain if they get ganked by three members. It doesn't take much time or skill to quickly glance at the mini-map to know if people are gone or not.
Though, apparently it's hard for some to even glance at the chat.
Basically this. I try to avoid support as much as I can in random pubs. You can never be assured that the others can even properly carry at low levels, let alone benefit from good supporting. Plus, most supports just fight for farm or do crazy builds anyway. I usually only go support if I have at least one friend in game with me.
Every time Windrunner lands a shackle, you will hear "GREAT SHACKLE" in Tobi's voice, and if you miss: "SHACKLE WON'T LATCH".
Every. Time.
Valve's insistence on quality won't allow Tobi to voice a character. Probably an announcer pack though.
PillowKnight
Member
And thus we have five man carry teams every game...and supports trying to carry etc. I'm fine with it though, pretty fond of five carry teams, specially the ones with five melees.
Aren't you above the beginner tier? I was hoping that stuff would end once I got some wins under my belt.
If only it did....
You just get higher functioning Dunning-Kruger boogers.
IDK. Yeah, I guess it's easier to pick on supports than any other role (play with 109 or, god forbid, Aisu and they'll tell you your support is shit no matter what you do), since you're liable for couriers and wards and taking care of other heroes and apparently holding their dicks while they use the bathroom too. Hell Aisu yelled at me when I was playing Crystal Maiden the other day because I was farming the jungle for some money to buy wards and bracers with, so I know that feel. But most of the time the yelling comes from inexperienced players who are gonna pound you no matter what.
WHY DIDN'T YOU COME GANK? WHY DIDN'T YOU STUN SO-AND-SO?- WHERE IS YOUR FARM? LOL OUR CARRY ONLY HAS BOOTS 10 MIN IN WOW
- COME ON TIDE WTF UR THE INITIATOR GO IN 1V5...
- OUTWORLD DESTROYER YUOURE THE INT HERO THAT MEANS U HAVE TO BUY THE WARDS DUMB@SS
- GUYS WE NEED A TANK OR WE CANT WIN
But you have to weigh the advantages here too. Supports are super item-independent and they're SO much easier to play for newbies on a mechanical level. You don't have to worry about farming, you can easily assist in killing people, and you do lots of damage with no items. That's why I recommend supports and burst damage heroes to newbies.
Enigma is actually a fierce mid solo if you play him that way. Consistent denies, huge base damage with eidolons, and a strong disable are not something to mess around with. He's just played as a jungler most of the time since he can easily do the jungle and free up a lane, but don't be afraid to go toe-to-toe with other heroes if you have to.
That's discouraging. I'm no savant and generally choose ganking heroes because of aforementioned legions of carries and the plague that is support.
Yeah, it's always discouraging when I get a Riki or Spectre in the game and they don't know how to last hit and spend most of the game just roaming around aimlessly. I don't have an issue with carries being off on their own farming, but at my level they sometimes aren't even doing that. Burst heroes like Zeus, however, seem pretty straightforward and I don't know why he isn't more popular at my level where no one ever buys a pipe.
OMG WHY YOU MID IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GANK?
Anyway the worst character to use in solo queue is Dazzle no contest. Whenever someone dies it's your fault and they're gonna remind it to you for the rest of the game.
Also while we're at it fuck all people who complain about killstealing. And fuck all people who keep their nuke (10 times worse if it's also a stun) to get the last hit and they're not an hard carry.
The good news is that if you avoid becoming one such booger yourself, improving your skills will tend to have a tangible impact on compensating for others' inefficiencies. And if you play with some others who similarly can look past their own egos, now you're cooking with gas!
Gully State
Member
Zeus' attack animation is slow so it makes last hitting with him a bit more difficult (I know you're supposed to suppliment with his chain lightning). Plus he's squishy with no cc's nor escapes..
I suppose you do have a point with this. Of course, I've learned the game in a really weird way. Instead of just picking a bunch of different characters out and seeing what stuck with me, I went with the character that I was told to go with by people who were also new to the game.
Who was that character? Fucking Sniper. You know what, I think I learned more about proper positioning and target selection than I ever would have with any other character. Also mastered the shop and item building because I would lose gold so fast when I first started out that I needed to buy shit piece by little piece as soon as I could. After playing a ridiculous amount of games with a single character, I learned quite a bit about the ranges of every other character and the damage/defense capabilities that they had simply by playing against them. I also learned a hell of a lot about tower pushing (<3 Sniper's range + shrapnel on buildings).
After Sniper, I moved on to Leshrac which taught me all about early game mana conservation and stun timing. I mastered the push. I also learned all about situational skill/item building, compared to a standard build that barely changes with Sniper.
Of course, now I feel pretty comfortable playing with any ranged hero. Now I need to move on to melee. Probably should start with either Brewmaster, Sven, or Axe.
I'm clearly no expert, but I think you can learn quite a bit by focusing on a single hero for a few games.
Will have to keep focussing on this. I also watch a ridiculous amount of streams, so I should try and share the info more with my friends.
Streams are definitely a wellspring of information, as well as some ideas for things like team lineups and the like.
I farmed up fine, and I took the other team's mid tower before any other towers fell but it was all down hill for my team after that.
RukusProvider
Banned
They should use SingSing for any hero who see's a Windrunner "Holy shit! it's LightofHeaven. fuckin run"
You can win a 5 melee strength game. Fuck we stomped that match.
aghanims should add a fourth panda to his primal split -- the love panda. the love panda has a passive disarm aura (1000 aoe) to stop enemies from punching you (because punching people isn't very loving). also the love panda is magic immune so you need to have a bkb if you want to kill it.
icefrog you can hire me any time
icefrog you can hire me any time
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Okay, am I missing some way in which invisibility is not broken beyond the point of being fun? Nothing more frustrating then trying to escape from someone faster then me that I can't see
Gully State
Member
It's not so much broken as it is annoying. If you buy dust/sentry, it's not really a huge problem. You just need someone on your team to be carrying it at all times..
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Hm...I really think that I just have some enjoyment issues with this game's core pacing. I've had a few games now where in the span of about ten minutes one team starts taking a slow lead so that they're all around 16 or so while the other team is all around 10 or so, and then from there its just one very slowwwww painful slaughter. Its just not fun being killed repeatedly and helplessly with three hits over twenty minutes of slowly being beaten back. It feels like its too easy for one team to slide up an accelerating curve that gives them a decisive advantage but not enough of an advantage to close the match out in a timely manner.
The salve to your ills is True Sight. Some heroes can obtain true sight vision on a target innately with skills, while most have to spend gold on specific items. The good news is that there's no lack of items to do this with, both on the cheap and expensive end of things.
And as Heroes go...
Also worth noting that for heroes who enter invisibility non-passively (Bounty Hunter, Clinkz), one can also prevent them from escaping into invis with silences. There are a fair number of heroes/items with innate silences that can help in this regard: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Silence
IHeartTSwift
Member
One of the only real flaws I see with the game. It's very much guilty of "chase the leader" syndrome. It's completely possible to strike a balance between rewarding skill, preventing inertia build, and stopping a game from going long, but I don't think the game is at that spot. Better play early on > better play later on. A team could conceivably play "better" for a greater duration of the game and still lose. I was trying to come up with some ways to address this, but without playtesting, none of these are anything more than ideas obviously. Why, for instance, should destroying towers reward gold? It's not enough that it already a) progresses one team closer to victory and b) gives more map control to that same team? Do they really need ~1000g on top of that?
...and, yes, I know comebacks are possible and do happen. That fact alone doesn't change refute this.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I'm going to try and keep getting better at it for sure, but yeah, losing in this game is just terrible. I don't mind being killed by more skilled players at all, but I do mind it taking twenty minutes for them to win once it feels like we're past the point of no return.
Because it validates pushing strats.
Without tower gold, no one would need a real reason to push early on and just farm until their carries are decked out.
Your complaints stem from the fact that you're playing at a lower level. It's really easy for a slight lead to snowball out of control when teams aren't used to working together. This is why heroes like Stealth Assassin and Ursa are considered "pubstompers", because their natural counter is teamwork, which is very hard to come by at lower levels. It's frustrating, I understand that, but game is structured so that it absolutely demands teamwork in order to be balanced.
Also, the goal of the game, despite what explicit mechanics may lead you to believe, is not to destroy towers and the ancient, but to achieve dominance over your opponents such that you can fulfill these win conditions. This is just as true with games like Starcraft or MTG. It's not about how much units or life total you have, but your position relative to your opponent's.
A good example of this in DOTA2 is when a tower is low on health and the other team is doing a big push on it. If you can't save the tower without endangering your team sometimes it's just better to let them have the tower than to risk getting wiped out. Why? Because if you do save the tower, it might go down eventually anyway, but if you fail to save it, you give them a bunch of kills and lose the tower as well.
Without tower gold, no one would need a real reason to push early on and just farm until their carries are decked out.
Your complaints stem from the fact that you're playing at a lower level. It's really easy for a slight lead to snowball out of control when teams aren't used to working together. This is why heroes like Stealth Assassin and Ursa are considered "pubstompers", because their natural counter is teamwork, which is very hard to come by at lower levels. It's frustrating, I understand that, but game is structured so that it absolutely demands teamwork in order to be balanced.
Also, the goal of the game, despite what explicit mechanics may lead you to believe, is not to destroy towers and the ancient, but to achieve dominance over your opponents such that you can fulfill these win conditions. This is just as true with games like Starcraft or MTG. It's not about how much units or life total you have, but your position relative to your opponent's.
A good example of this in DOTA2 is when a tower is low on health and the other team is doing a big push on it. If you can't save the tower without endangering your team sometimes it's just better to let them have the tower than to risk getting wiped out. Why? Because if you do save the tower, it might go down eventually anyway, but if you fail to save it, you give them a bunch of kills and lose the tower as well.
imo because:
1) It's a big source of revenue for supports/5
2) Destroying a tower early on (especially a tier one) creates a safer enviroment to farm for the enemy carry and the opposite for your carry.
3) It also helps balance, strategically the top lane is the weakest because it doesn't provide any form of Roshan control whatsoever so most team would just ignore that lane until it pushes the tier 3.
4) Carries become way stronger because even if their lanes are pushed in they aren't really losing gold-wise.
Dreams-Visions
Member
I have 350 wins or so. Yesterday I was matched up with 2 guys with 0 wins and one with 11. One guy so new he was busy asking how to play. He admitted it after his first death (in 30 seconds) and I gave him the usual resources. Hopefully this won't happen in the final version.
Schweinehund
Member
If you're smart with sentries you can usually bait a free kill out of them.
For instance when laning against brood I waited until she was out of fog, retrieved sentries from cour, placed a sentry, then dumped the sentry wards in one of the tree blindspots. Pretended I couldn't see him for awhile, then lo and behold once I was an ideal situation (all of my mobs near him, no enemy mobs left) I went for it and killed him.
I like sentry wards the best if you can predict an enemies movement or you are pushing. 90% of my problems of invisibility is when they use it for scouting, which is what sentry ward gets rid of, while eye and dust don't (generally you won't have control of the eye, the initiator/most survivable member does and you can't assume that they will be in the same position the rest of the team is in).
In general, if you're roam/ganking use dust/eye, if you're pushing/defending then sentry wards are best.
Eye is incredibly risky to get and has a heavy gold investment.
Schweinehund
Member
Dick
I knew you had sentries, I just didn't give a damn. Come at me batwhore.
I figured as much since I tried to dump them and I screwed up where I dumped them the first time. I've done it in other games though
.My post wasn't really based on personal experience. I don't really care if my games are super swingy- and they aren't most of the time anyways. It's based on the inherent fundamentals of the game. Killing a tower was just one example. Consider also pks- which not only remove the player from the game for x seconds and provide gold to the killer, but also provide gold to assists, experience to all involved, and remove gold from the killed- or 'racks, whose destruction result in megacreeps that not only provide inevitability (fine) but also give less gold. (less so) The fact that coordination and teamwork can overcome something doesn't mean that something can't be a flaw. You guys made some great points regarding the purpose of tower gold (although I would argue pushing strats need to be adjusted in the opposite direction given their heavy prevalence) and I'm not saying any one simple fix like that could "perfect" the game. I just don't see how anyone could argue this game isn't chase the leader. (It's worse than Power Grid, even!) I think it's a great game- better than most out there- but every game has its flaws and I feel that this is Dota's.
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